Majoru Oakheart
Adventurer
I hoped I wouldn't necro this thread again. But since there were so many people here who showed an interest in my problems, I felt obligated to update you all on the situation.
Since some people in this thread felt I didn't have the right to complain about this issue if it happened again due to my choice, I'd like to state for the record that it isn't so much complaining as that people here were interested and might want to know the details.
Essentially, here's what happened. Everything went back to normal. I continued playing our home game with the 2 people in question, we started running PotA with a new DM. They continued coming to our Adventurer's League games on Tuesdays.
Until last Sunday. We cancelled our normal PotA game because our DM cancelled on us. My girlfriend volunteered to Slot 0(which is to say, run the adventure in private for the DMs so they get a chance to play before the public game on Tuesday). This was at their house. So, it was my girlfriend, the person in question, his girlfriend, and one other guy. We were all sitting around making up characters since the new adventure was for 1st and 2nd level characters only. I made up a Lawful Good Cleric of Torm. I was lamenting that, in typical fashion, his girlfriend had made up a LE Paladin of Lolth for the campaign and the other two characters were Neutral alignments heavily focusing on being selfish. I didn't want to be the only good character again. I brought up the fact that there were maybe 4 good aligned characters among the 40 or so characters that had been created by all the players who showed up regularly. We also had a player leave and never come back because he felt that the atmosphere at our public games was "too dark" for his taste. The player in question got super defensive, saying he has never played a "dark" character or evil character.
So, we got to talking about alignments and about the behavior of the players in our Tuesday Adventurer's League games. One thing let to another and we started discussing a D&D Expeditions adventure from a couple of weeks ago (DDEX2-14, for those who might have played it). In the adventure, the head of the Wizard's guild of Mulmaster shows up and asks you to overthrow the High Blade(who is the ruler) of Mulmaster. Turns out the High Blade had betrayed the old High Blade a long time ago and trapped him in a gem. The gem was lost but it was found recently and the old High Blade was free now and wanted to take his rightful place back on the throne. We were told that the old High Blade was a better guy than the current one. The current High Blade has huge ties to the church of Bane(God of Tyrants). The church became much more powerful with the new High Blade in charge.
So, the guy in question says that he thought the adventure was stupid. There was no reason for any right thinking person to go on the mission. The city is extremely evil and corrupt and it certainly isn't up to adventurers to fix it. That city politics was "above the pay grade" of adventurers and wasn't an appropriate mission. I said that I disagreed and that NOTHING was above the pay grade of adventurers. If there were gods causing problems, we'd find them and kill them as well...or at least, we'd try.
He started asking me "Really? You think its fine to decide you don't like a government and remove it from power simply because you disagree with them?" and I was telling him "Yes, I'm an adventurer. Part of being an adventurer is that you believe you are always right and you have the ability to impose your will on most other people due to being more powerful than them. For good or ill. You have the power to depose governments and if those governments are evil and corrupt and you are good aligned, you almost have a moral obligation to use that power to remove them from power."
He just kept telling me that as far as he knew, the new guy would be just as evil as the current one. That nothing he did mattered in the slightest and Mulmaster was a horrible place filled with horrible people and that any good aligned person should leave town and never come back. Attempting to save it was just stupid.
I said that anything you could do to save the city was an act that a real good aligned person should be considering. Because being good means constantly striving for the best way to help everyone even if its hard...or even downright impossible. That if there was an even minor chance the new guy was better than the one one, that we should WANT to help any way we can.
He said that he didn't understand that concept at all. I said "That's because you aren't good."
That's when his face became a mask of rage. He said "Really? You think you know better than the ruler of a country? You think you can just go around murdering world leaders because you disagree with them and you think murdering them makes you GOOD? Why would murder ever be good? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." Pretty much ever word was louder than the one before it.
"I said, yes. Murdering evil people makes you good. That's just the way it works. That if my good character could murder all the evil deities in order to remove all their evil influence from the world forever, he'd do it."
Then he said "SERIOUSLY!?!? I...I...that's....wow...you really think that you're better than everyone else and your opinion matters more than anyone else's? That's it. I don't even want you in my house." Then he ran into his room, slammed the door. Then yelled through the door "Oh, and by the way, as for Tuesdays, I'm never coming back there again!"
Then I looked at his girlfriend with shock. I was expecting her to say "Let's just play without him for now". But she said "I think you all need to leave. I'll see you all next Sunday."
I said "Well, that..."
Then she snapped at me that I had to shut up right now before she got angry at me too. I said "I was going to say "Well, that seems to be a bad way to leave things off". She said "Oh....well, get out of our house. I'll see you on Sunday."
My girlfriend is extremely angry over the situation. She cancelled all her plans that day to run the game for us and we never even played.
They were true to their word and neither of them showed up on Tuesday.
I now have to decide if its worth it for me to attend the Sunday game. Not showing up will pretty much end the Sunday game. My roommate would stop going(not out of solidarity with me but because without getting a ride he'll be too lazy to go), leaving the average number of players who show up as 2. The guy in question and his girlfriend already began making plans with us to attend GenCon next year and I think if I don't show up, they'll cancel on us. In fact, it's likely I'll never see either of them again.
I'm not even sure what I expect to happen or what I WANT to happen. I want to keep playing the game. I'm having fun with it. His girlfriend was thinking of running Out of the Abyss for us, possibly starting this Sunday. I really want to play that adventure and I think without this group, I won't have the chance.
I think I'd once again be willing to forgive this outburst if I got an apology. But I know I won't get one unless I explicitly ask for one. And even then, there's about an 80% chance that asking for one will cause him to fly into another rage because he feels he's right. My plan right now is to call his girlfriend tonight and say "I'd like an apology from him and a promise this won't happen again if you want me to come back to the game." I have this feeling that by now they'll have rationalized that they were completely in the right and that I provoked them to kick me out of their house.
Since some people in this thread felt I didn't have the right to complain about this issue if it happened again due to my choice, I'd like to state for the record that it isn't so much complaining as that people here were interested and might want to know the details.
Essentially, here's what happened. Everything went back to normal. I continued playing our home game with the 2 people in question, we started running PotA with a new DM. They continued coming to our Adventurer's League games on Tuesdays.
Until last Sunday. We cancelled our normal PotA game because our DM cancelled on us. My girlfriend volunteered to Slot 0(which is to say, run the adventure in private for the DMs so they get a chance to play before the public game on Tuesday). This was at their house. So, it was my girlfriend, the person in question, his girlfriend, and one other guy. We were all sitting around making up characters since the new adventure was for 1st and 2nd level characters only. I made up a Lawful Good Cleric of Torm. I was lamenting that, in typical fashion, his girlfriend had made up a LE Paladin of Lolth for the campaign and the other two characters were Neutral alignments heavily focusing on being selfish. I didn't want to be the only good character again. I brought up the fact that there were maybe 4 good aligned characters among the 40 or so characters that had been created by all the players who showed up regularly. We also had a player leave and never come back because he felt that the atmosphere at our public games was "too dark" for his taste. The player in question got super defensive, saying he has never played a "dark" character or evil character.
So, we got to talking about alignments and about the behavior of the players in our Tuesday Adventurer's League games. One thing let to another and we started discussing a D&D Expeditions adventure from a couple of weeks ago (DDEX2-14, for those who might have played it). In the adventure, the head of the Wizard's guild of Mulmaster shows up and asks you to overthrow the High Blade(who is the ruler) of Mulmaster. Turns out the High Blade had betrayed the old High Blade a long time ago and trapped him in a gem. The gem was lost but it was found recently and the old High Blade was free now and wanted to take his rightful place back on the throne. We were told that the old High Blade was a better guy than the current one. The current High Blade has huge ties to the church of Bane(God of Tyrants). The church became much more powerful with the new High Blade in charge.
So, the guy in question says that he thought the adventure was stupid. There was no reason for any right thinking person to go on the mission. The city is extremely evil and corrupt and it certainly isn't up to adventurers to fix it. That city politics was "above the pay grade" of adventurers and wasn't an appropriate mission. I said that I disagreed and that NOTHING was above the pay grade of adventurers. If there were gods causing problems, we'd find them and kill them as well...or at least, we'd try.
He started asking me "Really? You think its fine to decide you don't like a government and remove it from power simply because you disagree with them?" and I was telling him "Yes, I'm an adventurer. Part of being an adventurer is that you believe you are always right and you have the ability to impose your will on most other people due to being more powerful than them. For good or ill. You have the power to depose governments and if those governments are evil and corrupt and you are good aligned, you almost have a moral obligation to use that power to remove them from power."
He just kept telling me that as far as he knew, the new guy would be just as evil as the current one. That nothing he did mattered in the slightest and Mulmaster was a horrible place filled with horrible people and that any good aligned person should leave town and never come back. Attempting to save it was just stupid.
I said that anything you could do to save the city was an act that a real good aligned person should be considering. Because being good means constantly striving for the best way to help everyone even if its hard...or even downright impossible. That if there was an even minor chance the new guy was better than the one one, that we should WANT to help any way we can.
He said that he didn't understand that concept at all. I said "That's because you aren't good."
That's when his face became a mask of rage. He said "Really? You think you know better than the ruler of a country? You think you can just go around murdering world leaders because you disagree with them and you think murdering them makes you GOOD? Why would murder ever be good? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." Pretty much ever word was louder than the one before it.
"I said, yes. Murdering evil people makes you good. That's just the way it works. That if my good character could murder all the evil deities in order to remove all their evil influence from the world forever, he'd do it."
Then he said "SERIOUSLY!?!? I...I...that's....wow...you really think that you're better than everyone else and your opinion matters more than anyone else's? That's it. I don't even want you in my house." Then he ran into his room, slammed the door. Then yelled through the door "Oh, and by the way, as for Tuesdays, I'm never coming back there again!"
Then I looked at his girlfriend with shock. I was expecting her to say "Let's just play without him for now". But she said "I think you all need to leave. I'll see you all next Sunday."
I said "Well, that..."
Then she snapped at me that I had to shut up right now before she got angry at me too. I said "I was going to say "Well, that seems to be a bad way to leave things off". She said "Oh....well, get out of our house. I'll see you on Sunday."
My girlfriend is extremely angry over the situation. She cancelled all her plans that day to run the game for us and we never even played.
They were true to their word and neither of them showed up on Tuesday.
I now have to decide if its worth it for me to attend the Sunday game. Not showing up will pretty much end the Sunday game. My roommate would stop going(not out of solidarity with me but because without getting a ride he'll be too lazy to go), leaving the average number of players who show up as 2. The guy in question and his girlfriend already began making plans with us to attend GenCon next year and I think if I don't show up, they'll cancel on us. In fact, it's likely I'll never see either of them again.
I'm not even sure what I expect to happen or what I WANT to happen. I want to keep playing the game. I'm having fun with it. His girlfriend was thinking of running Out of the Abyss for us, possibly starting this Sunday. I really want to play that adventure and I think without this group, I won't have the chance.
I think I'd once again be willing to forgive this outburst if I got an apology. But I know I won't get one unless I explicitly ask for one. And even then, there's about an 80% chance that asking for one will cause him to fly into another rage because he feels he's right. My plan right now is to call his girlfriend tonight and say "I'd like an apology from him and a promise this won't happen again if you want me to come back to the game." I have this feeling that by now they'll have rationalized that they were completely in the right and that I provoked them to kick me out of their house.
Sometimes the most mature thing to do is cut your losses and move away from negative or 'net loss' relationships.
